Genomics and Biotechnological Approaches in Generating Salinity and Drought Tolerance in Rice

Agronomically important crops like rice are highly affected by environmental stresses. Drought and salinity stress are the two dominant forms of abiotic stress which deteriorate crop yield and productivity. Despite the superior varieties and tremendous research in improving technologies, rice productivity has become static in the last few decades. Therefore, biotechnology techniques particularly genomic modification through genetic engineering could be utilized for enhancing rice yield in drought and saline conditions. Plant genetic engineering and molecular-marker approaches enable us to generate transgenic rice with improved genotype which can efficiently survive under extreme drought and salinity conditions. The use of improved tools like gene pyramiding and genome-editing techniques like TALENs and CRISPR/Cas9 will open up new avenues to engineer crops with desired traits.